Empowering the laboratory that created the most complicated machinery that mankind has ever produced.

Actify’s Enterprise CAD Viewing and Data Discovery solutions were selected by CERN to replace several heterogeneous systems and provide a single, enterprise CAD and metadata viewing system that works with all CERN native operational CAD data.

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

As an international research organization collaborating with physicists and engineers worldwide, CERN’s engineering and design systems face unique challenges. It goes without saying that CERN manages large CAD files and complex CAD assemblies involving many file formats, versions and contributions from external partners. Four different CAD viewers are used internally; CERN doesn’t have a single viewer that works with all file types or support multi-platform. As a result, collaborating and sharing files with external engineers and scientists is challenging. CERN has about 3,000 staff members and up to 13,000 collaborators (users) depending on the project needs. Hundreds of users at CERN and collaborating institutes are dependent on viewing CAD models and the associated metadata for supporting comprehensive design reviews. Users on the move need to effectively access designs through mobile devices. CERN required a flexible enterprise CAD – Metadata viewing solution that enables engineers to share data and collaborate with design offices, not just CERN-wide, but worldwide.

ACTIFY SOLUTION

Actify’s Enterprise CAD Viewing (SpinFire Ultimate) and Data Discovery (Centro) solutions were selected by CERN to replace several heterogeneous systems and provide a single, enterprise CAD and metadata viewing system that works with all CERN native operational CAD data.

Actify Centro is a server-based solution. In addition to batch processing CAD files into a lightweight ACT3D viewable format, it is also possible to export to a range of neutral file formats and image files automatically. Centro can pull information from multiple data sources and enrich the view of metadata and part properties within SpinFire Web. SpinFire Web is a zero download CAD viewer. 3D designs and associated metadata is securely accessed via a web-browser on a range of devices and keeps the CAD file local to your server, enabling collaboration yet maintaining control of the file. The information can be restricted via a password logon, and no CAD information is actually loaded onto the local device. Centro is a flexible solution that is fast and easy to deploy and embed into familiar CERN applications. SpinFire Web integrates with CERN’s collaboration portal via Centro’s API.

VALUE ADDED

CERN Benchmarked 52 commercially available CAD viewers. Actify SpinFire Ultimate satisfies CERN’s requirements in terms of extra capabilities, such as the ability to open and merge CAD files using different formats and offering high performance for large CAD assemblies. CERN’s objective is to enrich collaboration between CERN staff and external partners on CAD and engineering data. The Actify development team is excited and proud to be working on a crucial project, using modern engineering technologies. Actify SpinFire Ultimate and SpinFire Web effectively contribute to this strategy by providing one common CAD viewing platform to centralize all corporate CAD data and enable international collaboration. Benoit Lepoittevin, the CERN officer in charge of the benchmarking process for the CAD support team, stated that “Actify’s participation and collaboration during the benchmarking process was positive, with fast development of new product features and ability to fulfill CERN’s requirements.”

WHY ACTIFY

Actify, Inc. provides product visualization software to the discrete manufacturing industry for more than 20 years overcoming the challenge of sharing and communicating engineering type documents across the extended enterprise or supply chain. Actify understands product data, from the original designer’s product definition within engineering to disparate product data across a manufacturer’s extended enterprise.

ABOUT CERN

CERN is the world’s largest particles physics laboratory best known for designing and developing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and processing enormous quantities of data during its search for the Higgs Boson particle among other joint research investigations and engineering projects. CERN has 22 member states and collaborating nations from all over the world with over 13,000 scientists and engineers. File compatibility and multi-platform collaboration is crucial to CERN’s processes to support the ground-breaking research ongoing at the laboratory. Technology needs to be fast, simple and embedded into familiar processes and applications.